fly me to the moon
by TheHarleyQueen
Summary: Everyone is born with wings. Soulmates' wings are identical. Every time you 'sin'- according to some arbitrary laws of the universe, at least- one feather turns to black.


This is dedicated to Cameron Boyce. May he rest in peace.

* * *

Soulmates had wings of the same colour. And it wasn't like wing colours were unique, so that already made it rather difficult to find the one who was _yours_ by the laws of man and nature. On top of that, every time you 'sinned'- according to some arbitrary laws of the universe that no one had ever quite bothered to write down- one feather would blacken until it was the colour of ash.

Carlos knew this.

He also knew that fae creatures- like the djinn, like the sidhe, like sprites and the aos sí and elves- were born with blackened wings. Some legends said that they still had soulmates, others disagreed. He knew that witchcraft blackened wings the fastest, because each moment one spent as a witch was a supposed crime against God. He'd heard that a witch's wings could blacken in as little as a day.

In spite of knowing all of this, Carlos had still, rather foolishly, hoped that he would find his soulmate. Because, in all the (admittedly limited) histories and records that were available on the Isle of the Lost, no one had _ever_ been recorded to have _black _wings. Until him.

His mother liked telling the story of how she screamed and dropped when she first saw his wings. He wasn't fae, and there was no witchcraft involved in his birth. She liked telling him he was a changeling, but for all the things Carlos was (underweight, quiet, angry) he wasn't stupid. His wings were black, not blackened. They were glossy and bright and where blackened wings all but absorbed the sun, his wings reflected it.

But for all the children born with blackened wings on the Isle of the Lost, he never met anyone- never even heard whispers of someone- with wings like his.

He starts hearing the whispers more often- they like to call him a freak. So he takes to hiding at the school until long after dark, because there are only ever about six students on campus anyway, a far cry from the four hundred students or so that are expected.

This is where he meets Eva Marie Dietrich when they're both thirteen. He's scrawny, long days of hard labour and little food lending to the ease with which he can count each of his ribs when his shirt is off, and his wings are half-blackened already (he's a late bloomer in this sense- the couple of classmates who regularly attend school with him are near all the way to blackened, with only a few bright spots of colour left in their wings) (his sins are mostly arbitrary- things like petty theft and gluttony and anger). He lives in a world where this is the only natural progression, and it's impossible to keep them from blackening. Soon the colour of his wings will exist only in his memory.

Evie's wings are blackened. She was born of sin, a bastard created with the help of witchcraft (even fertility spells are a sin, says the unknown force that decides their fates). She's completely human, but she's been involved in witchcraft since mere hours after her birth when her mother used her blood for another youth potion.

They get along like a house on fire. They set a couple of houses on fire too. He's good with chemicals, and she's good with witchcraft, and even if her 'spells' don't use real magic (there's absolutely no magic to be found on the Isle). He still insists that witchcraft without magic should be called science, but when he tries she rolls her eyes and tells him that when he can make irises burst into flame by asking nicely, he can call it whatever he wants. He shuts up after that.

Evie desperately wants to find her soulmate too, which forges more bonds between them. She tells him that her mother's magic mirror could tell children born with blackened wings who their soulmate was and that as soon as there is magic again (as soon as she's off the Isle) she'll find both of their soulmates and they'll all live Happily Ever After.

Carlos doesn't have the heart to tell her that they're never getting off the Isle.

* * *

A couple of months later, he's walking home with his mother from the Evil Queen's castle when they're robbed at gunpoint. His mom is one of the few people on the Isle of the Lost with lawfully gained assets, and even after she was sent to the Isle and charged exorbitant fees for 'damages caused' and 'emotional strain', she's still probably rich enough to buy the rest of the citizens of the Isle out of house and home. It's probably the reason they spend time with the Evil Queen at all- his mom likes to associate with a certain 'breed' of person, and the Evil Queen is the closest she'll find on the Isle.

He takes everything off them- it's not much, because he's not entirely stupid, and his mom's not entirely mad, regardless of what everyone says. But he takes some of Carlos's best pieces, including the fox fur coat that took _ages_ to make- he'd had to find and skin every single fox himself- and his jacket, which was made of leather and probably the warmest thing he owned.

His mom makes him run after the thief, which he regrets as soon as he rounds the corner. The guy is fairly big, and he's found a couple of his buddies. They take turns beating Carlos, hitting and eventually kicking him when he keels over. Carlos tries to give his share back- biting and scratching and lashing out with elbows and knees (he's long since learned to use his size to his advantage)- but it's one versus four, and he doesn't last long. He passes out after a couple of minutes, trying to fight the blackness but thankful for the pain relief at the same time.

When he wakes up at Evie's place four days later, his wings are completely blackened. When he asks what happened, she tells him that she found him nearly a day after he left her house, so bloody she hardly recognized him as a person, let alone as someone she knew. He had three cracked ribs, major internal bleeding, a couple of broken fingers and a dislocated shoulder, as well as a broken nose, ankle and _wing_. She swears that she tried her best, but that he'd stopped breathing before she could get past a spell to stop the bleeding. She cries, swearing that she tried to keep him from dying- not because he'd be _dead _after that, the barrier around the Isle ensuring that none of the captives died inside its walls- but because death magic was dark magic, and that she'd wanted to preserve what little colour he'd had left in his wings.

He assures her it's fine because he never expected his wings to keep any colour for much longer, and it wasn't like they weren't black anyway. She cries anyway, and he sits awkwardly in her bed, unable to move from the pain and the fact that she'd all but collapsed in his lap.

She nurses him back to health, and the time they spend together seals their love for each other- when her mom isn't home, they exchange soft kisses and lie together in the bed, smiling and giggling and it's probably the happiest Carlos has ever been in his entire life (when her mom _is_ home, he hides in the closet. Evie apologizes profusely afterwards, usually with kisses, but it's not like he's never had to lie silent in a closet before. It's his entire life at Hell Hall).

When he's strong enough to walk again (Evie won't hear anything of flying for anything before three months after the break- it's not a big deal, because he mostly walks anyway. It's easier to pick pockets when you walk) he finds out that his mom has started spending time with Maleficent, currying favour to keep herself safe. It means he's not supposed to spend time with Evie anymore, because Maleficent's daughter has some kind of feud with her, but he finds ways anyway. Evie's his friend and the love of his life, and he refuses to stop spending time with her because his half-mad mother and her new mob boss tell him to.

It does lead to him spending more time with Maleficent's daughter though. Mallory Bertha was born with wings the colour of ash, and no way to prove that she _was_ Unseelie, but for the blackened wings and her mother's bloodline. Supposedly, it's the reason that Mallory has a human name (Maleficent's name is a rough translation from the faerie tongue) because her mother likes to mock her for the fact that she has no horns and no magic.

He doesn't let himself judge, just dutifully follows Mallory around and helps her beat the people her mother tells her to. Eventually, she introduces him to Jahin Imam, the son of Jafar, who she apparently spends all of her time with and really enjoys kissing. And whom she enjoys watching kiss other people, if the expression on her face when he pushes Carlos up against a wall is anything to go by.

He ends up spending all of his time with some combination of the three of them- Jay and Evie, Jay and Mallory, just him and Jay or Evie or Mallory. Jay and Evie get along pretty well- the other boy is somewhat terrified of the princess, Carlos realises. Jay may have blackened wings too, but he's never met a _witch_, never met someone who _chose_ blackened wings (so to speak. Evie didn't get a choice in her wings, but she chose to continue on the path of night when she turned thirteen) (it doesn't stop them from making out on a semi-regular basis).

It's Jay who lets slip that they spend time with Evie, and Carlos thinks that Mallory is either going to murder them on the spot, or torture and _then_ murder them on the spot. It wouldn't last, but she'd probably tell their parents after that, and then they'll never see Evie or sunlight again, and-

Mallory makes them take her to Evie. And when they meet, she immediately starts asking questions with all the dedication and vigour of an interrogator. Evie, to her credit, answers each question perfectly. When Mallory looks like she has no more questions she could possibly ask, almost panting from the exertion of the inquisition she put Evie through, Carlos finally gets up the courage to ask if she's going to hand them over to their parents.

Mallory shoots him a side-eye, unimpressed by his fear of their parents (whatever, it's not like she's not her mother's loyal attack dog) and then briefly shakes her head and flounces out of the room. Carlos, Evie and Jay take it as the go-ahead to continue with what they've been doing.

It's nearly another year after that before they all begin spending time together as a group off four. Mallory is quiet at first, acting aloof and uncaring, but Evie wins her over (Carlos wonders if there's anyone Evie _hasn't_ won over). And where before, she was a passionate lover, Mal becomes almost _doting_. She starts taking ridiculous risks- things like leaving her mother's enemies to sneak away with them to the loft Carlos and Jay refashioned, gifting Evie with pretty jewellery in the public eye, even challenging some of her mother's more ridiculous requests.

That's probably what convinces Maleficent to ship them off to Auradon for her hare-brained scheme when they'd obviously be much more useful on the Isle. Maleficent has never dealt well with dissent in the ranks, but Carlos knows she's not about to become a kinslayer, one of the highest crimes amongst the fae.

So Maleficent gets rid of her daughter, and Evie gets her wish- her mother just _hands_ her the magic mirror, and even though Carlos feels his heart breaking, he knows he'll let her go off and find her prince.

They get to Auradon and it doesn't go quite like that. The preppy Auradonian kids _ooh_ and _aah_ and snicker at their blackened wings, as they line the walls of the castle with magenta and cyan and moss and pink. And they grin and bear it, accept the snide comments and the questions about sins they never had a choice in, until they're shown to their rooms. Boys and girls on opposite sides of the castle, no boys in the girls' rooms and vice versa (Carlos knows that even if they're only in Auradon Prep for a couple of hours, they'll be breaking that rule. He wonders if it would have blackened a feather, had her still had any left).

And when Evie and Mal sneak into their room, Evie with the magic mirror nearly shattering in her excited grip, Carlos can't do anything but be happy for her. He holds her hand as she recites the enchantment, even as Mal insists that hey should be looking for the wand, and rubs circles into the skin as the fog clears away from the surface of the mirror.

Evie gasps, and he can't look at the person who's supposed to be the _love of his life's_ love of her life. But then the mirror clatters onto his knees, and he can't help himself.

He looks into the mirror, and he looks back out of it, Mal and Jay by his sides. _Soulmates, they're his soulmates, his wings were black because his soulmates were born with blackened wings_.

He kisses them, each of them, hard. He tries to pour all the love he has for each of them into each kiss, tries to meld their bodies together so that they never have to be apart because they're his _soulmates_.

He and his soulmates have wings of the same colour. According to some arbitrary laws of the universe that no one had ever quite bothered to write down, they'd sinned and sinned- been born and raised in that sin- until their wings were all the colour of ash. And still, he's managed to find the people that are _his_ by the laws of man and nature.

And for the first time, Carlos thinks that he is truly, absolutely and completely _happy._


End file.
